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going postal

The mail should resume tomorrow or later this week, and I am beyond glad – I can’t possibly win the More Things Delivered Than You contest at work if I’m not constantly getting mail. I have things to ship out, too, like porn and baby presents. I sure hope I don’t get those two packages mixed up. What a hilarious sitcom-esq scenario that would be!

I’m feeling kind of pithy today. I’ve mouthed off to famous people on Twitter, quoted Chumbawamba at another person’s deep thoughts, and am generally just prickly and full of brambles all over. I don’t think I got enough sleep last night, even though it seems I slept all weekend. Where is all my energy? I’m not just tired, I’m tired of everything. I think I need to make some sweeping changes in my lineup and other sports analogies.

I have a 4-day weekend coming up. This cannot get here soon enough.

I’ve earned the right to be this boring, damnit!

pretty little piece of lead

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17 thoughts on “going postal”

I get that you’re on Team No Babies, and that’s fine (there are no human shortages projected in our lifetimes) but understand that you don’t get just how little cooperation parents get from the rest of society when it comes to protecting kids from violence and porn (try paying attention to…oh…the posters in bus shelters for a start, or try actually watching what’s playing on the TVs next time you’re in Costco or Future Shop and think about hustling a 5 year old past that stuff). Our society is saturated in both, and yet we’re still amazed when Generation GTA goes nuts and start flipping cop cars and setting them on fire.

But I’m sure there’s no connection. Nope, nope, nope. Spending hours playing out these fantasies could definitely not make one more inclined to accept them in real life. Definitely not. Nonsense. Let’s mock the parents instead.

I’m from Generation GTA, and I’ve yet to flip a car over or set it on fire.

If you don’t want your 5 year old playing Violent Death Kill 17: Now With Hookers, don’t buy it. It’s not the store’s responsibility to not sell it, the game maker’s responsibility to not make it, or my responsibility to not play it – it’s your responsibility to keep it from your child, and yours alone. But let’s not argue over semantics, let’s blame the world for not raising your children right instead.

I don’t have a TV in the house and never have. I don’t have a gaming console in the house and never will. We have no processed sugar of any description, no junk food, few plastics, no trash toys. Our vacations are bike tours and backpacking trips, rather than Disneyland and roadside food. At 5 she already is the house sheriff on composting and recycling. When we’re driving in the car, she knows we’re polluting and she hates it; she’d rather we take the bikes. The presence of litter baffles her; why would someone do that, she asks?

What am I saying? I’m doing my part, and it ain’t easy raising a kid this way in our world. it’s hard, and expensive. It means taking constantly explaining why she can’t have the birthday cake, can’t play the video games that her friends have, can’t have Barbies, can’t see the same movies other kids see, can’t have the shiny plastic toy, can’t have the junk food lunches that they bring into her kindergarten. It means constantly explaining to your child that they’re not allowed to have things that they see everyone else around them having, and it hurts like Hell making your child feel different. Different does not go over well with kids, or with the kids they play with, but you suck it up and do it because, to the best of your knowledge, it’s important.

Our society loves to say how important kids are, but don’t dare ask for bus shelters that don’t have underfed women modelling “bathing suits”, or ask stores for a little help keeping the brain poison out of reach; at that point you’re asking too much, and it’s a PATHETIC response, and it should be all a parent needs to know exactly how valuable we think kids are.

“…and it ain’t easy raising a kid this way in our world. it’s hard, and expensive. It means taking constantly explaining…”

Did anybody ever promise you that it would be easy or cheap? If they did, they were lying to you. Welcome to life. It is sometimes hard.

“but you suck it up and do it because, to the best of your knowledge, it’s important…”

Yes, you do. You suck it up.

“or ask stores for a little help keeping the brain poison out of reach; at that point you’re asking too much…”

Wait, what? That is correct: you are asking too much. You make a specious claim without a shred of evidence, and expect the world to cater to your belief that this is so; that the world should censor itself to make your job as a parent easier. I was with you until that point…

I have $200 of yarny goodness stuck somewhere between portland and my house since May, and it’s KILLING ME. They may say that most people haven’t noticed much change since the mail strike, but anyone of our generation who orders shit off the internet has certainly noticed!

Oh, and Jeff, as a parent of a 5 year old and a 4 year old, I get where you’re coming from. HOWEVER, as a parent, I have the responsibility to monitor what my children watch, and also to explain to them the fact that some of the things they see are adult in nature and not for little girls. I don’t expect anyone else to police these things for me. Do we want to go back to the days where you couldn’t buy a condom because the storekeeper wouldn’t let you? Personally, I’m for LESS regulation for our day-to-day lives. (Mind you, I’m also for parents actually PAYING ATTENTION to what the fuck their children do, but I don’t see that happening.)

There’s this little thing called moderation, y’know… maybe you need to make use of some of it. Limit the crap, but also limit the extreme behaviour. I realize you want the best for your daughter, but becoming a total outcast because you don’t get ANY of the pop-culture references because you’ve never watched an episode of TV or played a video game isn’t any fun.

Yeah, that was way harsh. I’m in the midst of a shitty week, that’s extending out from a shitty month, that’s been a part of a shitty quarter. Apologies to all; I need a censor to sit beside me these days.

And yes, my kid is a tonne of fun to be around. A little bossy. Can’t imagine where she gets it from.

feeling bad for Jeff, I can see he was just trying to make a (valid) point. and sometimes you have to go to extremes to make a point. even if you alienate your audience in the process.

I’m an advocate of “everything in moderation” (even ice cream and porn), but I agree that the world can be pretty scary/sexy until you are desensitized. and desensitizing your kids to the scary/sexy world we live in SHOULD be tough.

Jeff: your vacations sound fun, but the rest of your life sounds like a helluva lot of work. no wonder you’re having a shitty week. here, have some processed sugar. it will make you feel better.

Thanks for the compassion :). I don’t honestly feel like the life we lead is at all extreme, but I usually have the good sense not to speak of it or write about it with an unfamiliar audience. Or at least keep the horns in.

I don’t actually mind most television programming; it’s the ads that offend me. We’re in an era of unequaled peace and prosperity, yet we’re unhappy. Why? Because we’re saturated with media that is designed to do nothing but make us unhappy with ourselves as we are; happy people don’t buy things they don’t need. Creating forms of discontent is at the core of all advertising.

I’m as sure as I can be that in a few generations they’ll be looking back at processed sugar the way that we look at cigarettes in the 50s -> 70s.

I’m dead certain that in a few generations they’ll be looking back on the sheer volume of plastic that we drink from, eat off of, and package our food in with the same sense of bemused wonder that we currently reserve for the generations that ate and drank off of pewter.

And, believing that, how can one not act on it? How can you feed your kid sugar? Sit her in front of a TV? Heat her food in Tupperware? If you have any options, I don’t think you can. I can’t. And sometimes a snap a little. Sorry about that.

For all those hating on Jeff, bear in mind that he admits to using a car, so he’s not saying he’s perfect. He’s just as much an accomplice in the rape and pillage of our planet as you or I (except I’m slightly better because I only take public transit*). And he has a computer or some other device to connect to the Interwebs and read and post on blogs; so I’m sure his children will have just as much access to the brain poisoning media that you all seem to think is so necessary to raise a child these days.

Oh and Kimli, if you’re going to make offhand jokes about the situation comedy-worthiness of mixing up baby gifts and pornography, you gotta expect to take the heat. I mean, really, that just crossed a line.

*Sorry, Jeff, don’t mean to throw you under the bus like that, but facts are facts and to be honest I don’t know how you live with yourself using a car knowing full well the toxic effect the petroleum industry has in all of our lives. I find such hypocrisy appalling and am glad that your daughter is calling you on it already.

Maybe it’s just me, but this comment thread is killing me. Why are we even talking about this?

I’m all for calling Kimli on being anti baby (I was her first lieutenant in TNB and switched sides recently so I’m more than a little touchy on the subject) but an offhanded comment about giving the parents of new babies porn instead of the intended baby gift is FUNNY. Also, unless your sugar/plastic/pop-culture* free children are so advanced that they are capable of being scarred for life by being in the vicinity of porn at birth, I fail to see how this could even be misconstrued as a hidden slight about those who opt to play for Team Babies.

*I grew up without processed sugar or pop culture for the most part, due to awesome hippie parents. While I’m totally well adjusted now, this meant that I had a really hard time making friends in school because I didn’t get half of what everyone was talking about, and upon moving out on my own I got fat because all of a sudden I could buy my own groceries and for a period of time that meant way too many of the processed foods we never had at home. Teaching your kids moderation is a good thing, mmmkay? Also, not letting your kid enjoy birthday cake when other kids around her are doing so is MEAN.

*That said, we don’t have cable, eat mostly a local organic diet, enjoy our large collection of pyrex food containers (aka not plastic), and will raise our children with – at the core – many of the same values as you seem to be, and how our respective hippie parents raised us. Just, with moderation. So the other kids like them, and so they too can enjoy the cake.

I think Kimli’s tried very hard to prove she’s not anti-baby, and has explained what she is against, which includes mothers with grandiose entitlement issues (re: bringing babies to conferences and not removing them when they’re noisy). The only babies she is directly against are the hypothetical ones coming out of her own vagina.

It’s cool you and R are planning for kids, but people can like babies and still not want any for themselves. I for one appreciate anyone helping repopulate the earth, since I’m not doing it.

Jeff, I have every current generation video game console, a TV, a digital cable receiver bringing me FoxNews, Sun News Network, Coke in the fridge (and more in the cupboard for when that runs out), I eat McDonalds for lunch, pizza for dinner on Saturdays, I don’t recycle the cardboard pizza boxes, I use plastic bags and saran wrap at will, often in greater quantities than I need to, simply because I can, I’m not afraid of carbon-dioxide, I believe that fossil fuels have been the best thing that has ever happened to humanity, I don’t ride a bike, and I fly on airplanes for vacations.

My children are going to be allowed to do the same, within moderation of course. What frightens me more than anything else, is your 5 year-old daughter being raised with the totalitarian instinct to tell others (ADULTS!) how to live their lives. I can’t imagine what she going to be capable of when she is an adult. Thankfully for me, and unfortunately for you & your daughter Canada is still a free country.

In my opinion, my children are going to end up far better adjusted and happier than yours. I could be wrong but we’ll see won’t we?